California
Healthy School Act's Requirements Provide a More Accurate Picture
of the Extent of School Pesticide Use

One year
after California Healthy Schools reporting requirements were put in place,
a new report reveals that the state's 15 largest school districts, where
more than 26% of the state's public school children attend classes, anticipate
using 54 pesticides active ingredients, compared with 42 used just two
years ago. The report, Learning Curve: Charting Progress on Pesticide
Use and the Healthy Schools Act, released by California Public Interest
Research Group (CALPIRG) Charitable Trust and Californians for Pesticide
Reform (CPR), also shows that many of those target districts are not in
full compliance with the law. However, the report further finds that some
have significantly improved their pest management practices.

The Healthy
Schools Act, which went into effect January 2001, requires schools
to track and report on their pesticide use, including sending parents
a notification at the beginning of each school year listing every pesticide
that schools in the district might use. Learning Curve finds that
many of the largest school districts in the state use pesticides linked
to childhood cancers, asthma and other serious health problems on the
rise in California.

Before the Healthy
Schools Act, school districts were not required to maintain any information
on pesticide use in schools. At that time, the same districts later surveyed
for Learning Curve revealed to CALPIRG Charitable Trust that they
used 42 very hazardous pesticide active ingredients in 2000. Now, the
Act's new reporting requirements provide official 2002 data, summarized
in Learning Curve, for the total number of pesticides schools anticipate
they might use, including 54 hazardous active ingredients. Comparing the
figures, the new requirements clearly provide a more accurate picture
of the extent of school pesticide use than was
possible before the law.

"Because of the
Healthy Schools Act, we now have a much better picture of pesticide
use in California's schools," said report author Corina McKendry,
CALPIRG's Pesticide Associate. "Parents and school officials can
now take informed action to protect children's health and say no to toxic
pesticides at schools."

Learning Curve
also documents inconsistent implementation of the Healthy Schools Act
across school districts. The report finds that four of the 15 school districts
surveyed were out of compliance with the law's parental notification requirements
as of January 2002. In addition, while all districts informed the report
author that they keep required records of pesticide use information, few
could provide this information easily as mandated by the law. Also, although
the Act requires school districts to give parents the option to be notified
before each pesticide application in their children's schools, many districts
made this process difficult, burying information on parent's right to
register in small print at the bottom of long letters.

"Many districts
are failing to live up to their end of the bargain by not making information
easy to get and understand," David Chatfield, CPR Executive Director
stated. "Denying parents the right to crucial information that can
help them reduce their children's pesticide exposure is against the law
and unacceptable."

Learning Curve
finds that despite little improvement in pesticide management in some
districts, others have successfully reduced their reliance on pesticides
by using less toxic alternatives. Since the Act became law, Oakland Unified
has joined San Francisco Unified and Los Angeles Unified in passing a
strong Integrated Pest Management (IPM) policy. IPM employs common sense,
least toxic approaches to pest management, prioritizes children's health
and often saves money in the long run.

"Alternatives
to toxic pesticides work - we know this from experience in some of the
state's largest school districts" said Martha Dina Arquello, Environmental
Health Coordinator at Physicians for Social Responsibility, Los Angeles.
"It's time for school officials to get serious, pass strong IPM policies
and stop using pesticides around children."

In the report, CALPIRG
and CPR call upon school districts to phase out the use of highly toxic
pesticides, adopt and implement strong IPM policies, come into full compliance
with the Healthy Schools Act and make information on district pesticide
use easily accessible. The organizations also call on parents and teachers
to push their school districts to adopt strong IPM policies, participate
in IPM oversight committees to ensure full policy implementation and ensure
that they receive pesticide notifications from their districts. Finally,
CALPIRG and CPR and urge state policy-makers to ban the use of highly
toxic pesticides in California schools and other sites where children
are likely to face exposure.